Last week of studying

Amman Travel Blog

We took a break from class on Saturday so Khalood our teacher took us on sort of a field trip to the King Houssein gardens. I felt like I was a kid again on a elementary school field trip. Atop the gardens, perhaps the most fitting memorial to the late King, is the Royal Automobile Museum. I basically learned the history of modern Jordan through automobiles. Displayed are a ton of cars owned by the royal family in addition to sweet cars used by them on rare occations/cellebrations and even cars used in famous motocades (like when the king returned from the States after cancer treatment). Both the current King Abdullah II and King Houssein shared a passion for autoracing in their younger years. In the museum we saw pictures of them racing and rallying and saw some of their trophies and records.

A personal tour by an archeologist and a historian

Then we went over to the Jordanian culture wall. It's still being finished but it's about a 150m stretch of outdoor museum dedicated to the history of man living in the region. The astonishing thing is that Jordanians are now going to the preislamic era (sometimes thousands of years BC) and claiming it as part of their own herritage. On the wall are artistic depictions of artifacts found at Jericho, Pella and Petra in addition to ancient maps and mosaics. It's in chronological order and the creativity in depicting the eras is top noch. We had 2 friends, an archaeologist and a historian give us a personal tour. It was great.

After that we ate lunch and went down in the gardens to the football fields where we played America versus Jordan in Soccer. Khalood's brother and his friends showed us that the US has a long way to come in football, but it was a good time.